


Muscle Car Summer

by JackNSallyGal



Series: OT3 [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Background Character Death, Bipolar Disorder, F/M, Getting Together, OT3, Pre-OT3, Sirius Black & Lily Evans Potter Friendship, past referenced sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 19:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6821809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackNSallyGal/pseuds/JackNSallyGal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I think somewhere along the way I started dating you and your best friend.”</p><p>“Looks that way,” James agrees, plucking the cigarette from her fingers for a drag.</p><p>Lily nearly falls out of her chair when she sees how wide his smile is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Muscle Car Summer

**Author's Note:**

> “With you, intimacy colours my voice.  
> even ‘hello’ sounds like ‘come here'.”  
> -Warsan shire

**May**

Lily doesn’t tell anyone, but everything is worse in the summer.

James knows, of course. He picks up on her moods sometimes before she does. And when the summer blues hit, he’s at her apartment with movies and pizza, ditching his night class so she can deposit herself in his lap, only crawling out when it’s time for bed.

And despite what she perceives as her ability to keep her crumbling mental health locked down, she’s aware that her friends know, to some extent, that things are off for her when the weather turns.

Around her, the world blooms.

Flowers angle toward the sun. The days grow longer, hotter. She swears the sun is targeting her, specifically, drowning her apartment in light and heat, like a bully showing their fists, taunting their prey before descending with a vengeance.

She spends most of her days in a dull fog, drinking too much coffee, commuting to work, and then coming home to pace, chain smoking too late into the night. Despite the nightmares, night time is the best. She throws open her bedroom window, breathing in the crisp air, allowing it to cool her fevered skin.

She can almost pretend it’s fall.

She tells herself, already lying, unintentionally, that this summer will be different. She will wake up at a normal time, force food into her body, shower, and so on. When it’s warranted, she will smile. Laugh.

She will text James back in a relatively timely manner, so he won’t worry.

_She will, she will, she will._

**June**

She ends up doing the opposite.

Lily makes it to the second week of June, which is a record, something to be proud of if she could pull herself from the fog long enough to be proud. But she’s too far gone for self-congratulation.

She avoids losing her job by pitching the work from home idea to her editor, who doesn’t look quite convinced, but having worked with Lily for three years now, knows something about Lily and summers not agreeing, and gives her the go-ahead.

Monday through Friday she manages to turn in half her assignments and spends the rest of the time sleeping. She sees how long she can go without changing out of her pajamas and turns off her phone, so she won’t feel bad when she is so incapacitated by her own head that she can’t respond to the numerous texts or calls.

* * *

It’s a Saturday.

There’s a knock at the door, which prompts Lily out of bed. She shuffles over, blearily peering through the eyehole to find Remus on the other side, holding up a case of beer.

He doesn’t comment on Lily’s general state of dishevelment when she lets him in. Just strolls through like he owns the place, pausing to place a gentle kiss on her temple. Not for the first time, she thinks he ought to be knighted, or given sainthood, for not wrinkling his nose at her unwashed hair.

“Want to get day drunk?”

They amble out onto her balcony. Lily steals the sunglasses off his face and settles them on the bridge of her nose before collapsing in the chair next to his.

“I’m worried about you,” Remus says matter-of-factly, trying to hide a wince as he settles in the chair next to her.

She re-directs, asking how he’s feeling, genuinely glad to hear it’s only a mild pain day, which means _less than excruciating_ but still _really fucking bad_ on the chronic pain scale.

He gives her time. Tells her about Peter kicking up a fuss on the subway during their commute home when someone tried to give Remus shit about his cane. Other little stories spill out, most about Alice and Frank and their adventures with baby Neville.

Lily drinks it in. She revels in the normalcy that always feels just outside her reach. Eventually Remus notices and brings them back to the previous topic.

“It’s been a while since we’ve all had family dinner.”

Lily takes a long pull of beer, feeling like a failure on multiple fronts.

“I’ll make you the best pierogi in town once I figure out how to leave my bed.”

“Hey,” Remus says gently, looking shame faced. “I didn’t mean-“

“I know,” Lily assures him. She knows he didn’t, never actually meant to imply otherwise. “I know.”

They lapse into silence, the hands not clasping cheap beer linked loosely together.

* * *

 “Come dancing.”

With James sequestered in the library, on a hellish schedule of caffeine and torture before exams for summer classes, Sirius announces his presence the usual way, allowing the roar of his motorcycle filtering through her open windows to do what most people accomplish with a phone before showing up at her door.

He doesn’t even pretend to be sorry for stopping by so late and without calling first. He just smiles, setting his leather jacket and helmet on her end table and raises both brows expectantly.

Lily gestures with both hands at the state she’s in, pajamas and all, with an amused twist of her lips. She knows it won’t stop him even before he grins back, saying only, “Change.”

They walk to a place only two blocks over where the drinks are astronomically priced but the music is fast and loud. On the way, Sirius asks about her day, lighting up a cigarette they pass back and forth.

“Made my deadlines in the nick of time,” she admits. “All that matters. You?”

“Finally got the parts in for Moody’s ancient deathtrap,” he says, exhaling a plume of smoke from the cigarette dangling from his mouth, expression mocking.

“Stop. You love that car.”

“I do,” Sirius admits, smiling helplessly at her obvious amusement. “But having the old man badger me over the repair timeline isn’t the highlight of my day.”

“I can imagine. First round’s on me for that alone.”

Lily hauls open the door and despite the heaviness weighing on her, seemingly day in and day out, she’s able to muster something like excitement when they step into the cramped space. The lights are low, but Lily can make out a packed bar and the bodies moving seamlessly together on the dance floor.

Sirius nudges her, gently knocking shoulders since they can’t really speak without screaming at one another, so she’ll look at him. He catches sight of her smile and flashes her a relieved look, holding his hand out for her to take. Lily feels something like jitters race along her spine as their fingers lace together as he leads her through the relative chaos until they’ve carved out their own space among the dancers.

“Show me what you got,” Lily leans in to give the order and she’s close enough to hear Sirius’ laugh.

She throws down the gauntlet and Sirius is never one to disappoint. For nearly two hours they dance; hands roaming on hips, bodies pressing together moving easily to the heavy beat. 

They dance together and with strangers, eyes locked on one another, never really letting the other out of their sight when they're with someone else, before they come back together, laughing over the music.  

Every now and again they wander to the bar, spending too much money on fruity drinks with way too little alcohol just to catch their breath. And then they’re back on the dance floor, laughing and moving together like they’ve been doing it forever.

They end the night after a slow song. Still a little breathless, Lily had stepped into Sirius’ open arms, resting her head on his shoulder as he held her close.

“Thanks for forcing me to come out,” she says on the walk home.

Sirius has his arm draped loosely around her shoulder and Lily leans into the contact, pleasantly buzzed and enjoying the night around her. At her words he huffs out a laugh and she feels the puff of breath against her neck, with his head ducked so close to hers.

“You make it sound like I dragged you out by your hair.”

“You know what I mean. Showing up without giving any notice. Sometimes it’s good for me, you know?”

“I do. Figured, otherwise you would’ve told me to go to hell.”

Back at her apartment, Lily leaves Sirius in the kitchen to get himself a glass of water so she can change into pajamas. She stumbles a little and rights herself with a hand on her dresser before peeling off her sweat dampened clothes and changing into one of James’ shirt and sweats.

When she wanders back into the kitchen Sirius has already shrugged on his leather jacket and is making a grab for his keys off the kitchen table.

“Sirius, come on…”

“Don’t want to overstay my welcome,” he says, sounding oddly gruff.

“Yeah? Well, I’m not risking you wrapping your bike around a tree. Stay the night.”

She finds another one of James’ shirts for him to wear, deposits sheets, blankets and a spare pillow on the couch, along with a glass of water and Tylenol on the coffee table to chase away a potential hangover.

Before she can think too much about it, she presses a fleeting kiss against his cheek, smelling the laundry detergent from the shirt mixed with his sweat and cologne, and says a hasty goodnight before she can catch sight of his sleepy smile.

* * *

 Six a.m. comes far too soon.

Lily checks her phone, stifling a pathetic yelp when the screen brightness wrecks her poor, abused eyes, and nearly flings it across the room. Beyond her bedroom, she can hear Sirius try to quietly move around, his efforts wasted when he bumps into what she thinks is the end table and lets out an impressive string of curses.

When she finally rolls out of bed, padding silently into the kitchen, he catches sight of her and looks up guiltily, pausing in the act of jamming his feet into his boots.

“Hey, don’t get up.”

“Too late,” Lily remarks around a huge yawn.

Sirius looks apologetic as he shrugs on his jacket and she waves him away, watches as he takes the time to rake a hand through his bedhead when he picks up the helmet. This time she lets him. Because he’s sober enough to drive and it’s too early for her to put up a fake fight about making him breakfast when she really just wants to crawl back into bed.

“Drive safe.”

She gets a small, brilliant smile before he nods and disappears through the door, shutting it quietly behind him.

* * *

Her friends continue taking shifts.

Marlene and Peter stop over with dessert at least twice a week. When he’s not in corporate hell, hating his cubicle with every fibre of his being, Peter is an unabashed foodie. He’ll try anything once and loves bringing new concoctions for Lily and Marlene to sample and inevitably fawn over.

Frank and Alice invite Lily out to see the baby. Without fail, she overstays her welcome, which the couple both declare impossible, to cradle the chubby cheeked Longbottom.

James and Sirius stop over with takeout, easing some of the gloom that seems to follow her around these days with tales from their work week peppered with general nonsense just to see her smile. They expertly play off one another, teasing and laughing with such ease that it’s impossible not to join in, at least a little.

Once the food is gone they move to the couch with Lily between them, head resting against James with her feet in Sirius’ lap. Sirius sits on the other side of her, his arm stretched over the back of the couch, seemingly engrossed with whatever is flickering on the TV.

Lily tilts her head a little, angling it so she can watch the shadows play across his face. She thinks, with a few beers under her belt, that she’s being subtle enough to go undetected, but it isn’t long before Sirius slowly turns his head, expression unreadable as he stares back.

  **July**

Lily can’t always go dancing.

Sirius stops over and she tries to muster the enthusiasm she felt when he showed up on her doorstep not so long ago, the human equivalent of a dare she would never back down from. She holds open her arms in a useless gesture, shrugs.

“I can’t.”

She tries to sound bright, like it doesn’t bother her to admit it, but her voice is flat, nearly unrecognizable and it mobilizes Sirius into action.

“Hey, it’s fine,” he says, kicking the door shut with one booted foot and shrugging off his jacket. “I’m in the mood for pizza anyway.”

* * *

They’re in bed with a mostly empty box of pizza and laptop between them when James gets there.

Lily is drowsy, bundled under too many blankets despite the heat but still leans into his touch when his hand ghosts over her hair, gentle and soothing.

Later, when the pizza and laptop have been cleared away, the bed sags with trio’s weight and she falls asleep to the quiet hum of their conversation.

* * *

The motorcycle is one of those things Lily thinks she should be wary of, like it could be something to inspire fear if only her brain got the memo. The idea of being so unprotected, without less metal in the guise of safety that cars offer is something that she feels like should worry her.

When she was younger, her dad would adopt his father slash cop voice and warn her against them, citing the many accidents he’d seen over the years, especially the gruesome ones that involved riders who hadn’t worn helmets.

She listened to the speech, politely nodded along, and at the age of nineteen, within an hour of meeting him, hopped on the back of Sirius Black’s bike without looking back.

“One tap on the shoulder means look. Two means stop, immediately,” Lily recites as she puts the helmet on.

Sirius listens to her go through the signals they worked out, should she need anything whenever they’re out for a ride, nodding along as she rattles them off from memory. When she’s finished she beams at him with a thumbs up that he mirrors before doing up the zipper on her leather jacket and giving her helmet a light tap.

He settles in on the bike, looking over his shoulder as Lily throws one leg over the side and rests her feet on the metal bars. She isn’t thinking of her father’s warning lectures and feels no trepidation, only excitement to see James and the others, as the bike roars to life beneath them and then inches forward as Sirius checks that it’s clear before merging seamlessly with traffic.

He gets them out of the thick of it as soon as possible, navigating the mess of bumper to bumper until they’re on residential streets that give way to mostly empty winding roads. Lily likes it best this way, riding surrounded by trees and fields, away from the congestion downtown.

Despite the safety first thing, she’s still grateful when they pull into the Longbottom driveway so she can take off her helmet and shake out her hair. Sirius packs away his own helmet and hers, unabashedly watching as she tries to tame the red strands into something a little less wild.

“What?”

“You look good,” he says with an inelegant shrug.

He holds out his hand and they walk toward the house that way, slow and happy.

* * *

“Does it ever bother you?”

Lily is mid-ponytail flick in an effort to keep her hair out of Neville Longbottom’s grabby hands and into his gummy, toothless mouth, when Marlene poses the question. Lily adjusts her hold on the baby and cocks her head, genuinely confused about the other woman’s train of thought.

“Hmm?” 

Marlene finishes her beer, head nodding vaguely in the direction of where James, Sirius, Alice, and Peter are attempting to start the bonfire. Lily takes in the way James and Sirius are standing, shoulder to shoulder, with Sirius’ arm slung low around James’ waist.

Their heads are close, bent together. Even though they’re standing with the others, it’s like they’re inhabiting their own world, orbiting one another without even trying.

Neville coos, blinking up at her, and Lily gives him a silly, fond smile as she considers Marlene’s question and her own feelings.

It’s an enormous relief when she can say, honestly and without deceit, “There’s nothing to be bothered by.”

She’s not sure she could explain it with words, that it doesn’t bother her because she feels like she could walk up and stand on either side of them, or insert herself between them and be immediately enfolded in the casual tangle of limbs and whispered words. Or more importantly, that she doesn’t feel the need to try to insert herself into their world or constantly keep up.

That things are okay whether she’s with them or on her own because they find their way back to one another so naturally.

That feeling is cemented when the pair wander over sometime later.

James comes to stand over her shoulder, ducking to press a kiss against her cheek before murmuring senseless, sweet things to the baby who makes grabby hands at him, as Sirius gathers the hair that’s come loose from Lily’s clip and works on securing it into a neat ponytail as his fingers gently rake through the strands.

* * *

**August**

August feels like a breath of fresh air.

Lily stops telecommuting to work and actually makes it into the office. She fluctuates between going out with friends, laughing, drinking and generally feeling like a human being, to having to claw her way out of bed and abusing dry shampoo.

It isn’t easy or comfortable, but it’s better than the heaviness of June.

She’s having a sleepy night in, complete with takeout and a book of essays when her phone chimes on the other side of the bed. Lily reaches through the tangle of blankets, lightly slapping the bedding until she locates it, smiling a little at the name flashing on the screen.

“What are you up to, trouble?”

Lily is met with a long silence that has her smile fading.

“Sirius?”

She sits up in bed, holding the phone tighter. She strains to listen and thinks she picks up jingling keys, maybe footsteps crunching on gravel. Sounds rush together into something frustratingly incoherent and she gives up trying to piece the clues together.

“My brother’s dead.”

His voice comes out as a rasp and then he laughs, hollow, disbelieving, and Lily nearly drops the phone as she launches out of bed, searching for her keys.

“Where are you?”

“I…he drowned, Evans. Which is…really something because he’s a strong swimmer, you know?”

“I know,” Lily babbles. “He was on the swim team, right? You told me that, I think.”

“Three years,” Sirius goes on. “And the idiot goes off and fucking drowns.”

Lily tucks her keys and wallet into the pocket of her sweatpants. She’s moving through her apartment in a panic, trying to tuck her feet into flip flops, listen to Sirius, and text James at the same time.

She shoots off an SOS text as she locks up, still listening to Sirius as she takes the stairs, coming out on the ground floor and stepping into the balmy night in time to catch Sirius pulling up to the curb in crabby old Moody’s black muscle car.

“Oh, thank Christ.”

Weak with relief, Lily races over to the driver’s side of the car. She flings open the door, crouching as Sirius leans out, undoing his seatbelt and nearly collapsing in her arms all in one motion.

“Okay. We’re okay,” she murmurs, holding on tightly. One hand comes up to smooth his dark hair as she croons nonsense into his ear, feeling his body shudder against hers. “I’m here. We’re okay.”

Getting him upstairs is a blur. Lily remembers at the last minute to lock the car before taking him by the arm and getting them both into the elevator. For his part, Sirius goes from crying to trying to appear unaffected. When she puts her arm around his waist, he leans away and averts his gaze like the previous ten minutes never happened.

Upstairs, he doesn’t say anything, just marches into the bathroom, the door shutting behind him and locking with a soft click. Lily worries her lip between her teeth before wandering as far away from the closed bathroom door as possible and whipping out her phone.

“You alright?”

“There’s been…James, Regulus is dead.”

She hears a whoosh of breath on the other end of the phone, like the air has been knocked out of him, and his voice is unsteady when he speaks next.

“I’m on my way. Traffic is holding me up, but I’m coming, okay? Tell him…”

“I will.”

* * *

Lily spends the next twenty minutes on the other side of her bathroom door, seemingly talking to no one.

She avoids anything to do with Regulus because she doesn’t one hundred percent know where his head is at. Their relationship was difficult on good days, but mostly hostile and in the past few years, nonexistent.

So she goes with safer subjects, including the greenhouse they went to the day before, talking about how much she loves her pink begonias and the succulents scattered along the windowsill in her bedroom.

Eventually, she gets to the car. She doesn’t mention the fact that Sirius lifted it and could be facing jail time because, priorities, but she thinks about seeing him pull up.

“You looked good in that car. Which isn’t saying much because you look good doing most things,” she muses with a quiet laugh.

The bathroom door opens, just a crack, and Lily can make out Sirius’ legs through the gap; his pose mirroring hers on the floor.

“I brought it to impress you. Wasn’t even going to tell you about Regulus, just ask if you wanted to go for a drive.”

“I would have come along,” Lily admits.

It isn’t anything as dramatic as a sudden, overwhelming realization, but Lily knows, as soon as the words fly out of her mouth, that she loves him. It doesn’t shock her, or require her to re-think her entire life, since it’s been there, quietly, for some time.

There aren’t too many people in the world she’d go joyriding with in a stolen car because she values not being in jail and the idea of taking something that belongs to someone else doesn’t sit right with her. But she knows with everything in her, had Sirius pulled up looking the way he did, even without giving her a reason, she would have followed him into the night.

“Little fucked up that I wasn’t going to mention my brother being dead, though,” he points out.

“But you did, right off the bat.” There’s a stretch of silence, so Lily continues, “And you don’t need a car to impress me.”

Lily nudges the door again. This time, she hears Sirius shift so it swings open. He’s sitting cross legged and red eyed and when Lily extends her hand to him, he takes it, lacing their fingers together tightly.

They sit that way until James arrives, using his spare key to get in.

* * *

Lily and Remus are tasked with getting the car back before Moody notices it’s gone. It’s nerve wracking thanks to Moody’s paranoid, eccentric reputation. She half expects him to rush out of the house, waving a shotgun, but the house is dark and everything is quiet.

The entire neighborhood appears to have gone to bed hours ago, which is some kind of miracle as the pair works in silence, using glass cleaner and rags to make sure the car is pristine, with no trace of Sirius left inside or out.

* * *

By morning, everyone's asleep except James and Lily. They tried, half-heartedly, to sleep on the couch, and gave up after twenty minutes of staring at one another, silent for fear of waking the others.

Peter, Remus, and Sirius share the bed, breathing even and deep after the long night. Having gone to bed only a matter of hours before, Lily expects them to sleep until early afternoon at least, leaving her and James to share a cup of coffee and cigarette on the balcony.

“How are you holding up?”

Lily wants, more than anything, to abandon her chair so she can settle on his lap. She would gladly curl up there for the rest of the day, watching the sun peek over the clouds and settle mid-sky until the others wake up.

Instead, she takes a deep breath and stares down at her own hands, feeling like a coward for being unable to look at him.

“I think somewhere along the way I started dating you and your best friend.”

“Looks that way,” James agrees, plucking the cigarette from her fingers for a drag.

Lily nearly falls out of her chair when she sees how wide his smile is.

* * *

The history between James and Sirius goes something like this:

They met at the age of eleven at the kind of ridiculous, expensive boarding school that costs more than most colleges, and hated one another on sight. According to legend, with input from Remus and Peter, the hatred was a rather comical, nonsensical thing that stemmed from two boys trying to jockey for the position of leader in their year.

The ill will lasted approximately one semester, after which time they bonded over their love of pranking their classmates and became so frighteningly in sync it was as if they spent the previous eleven years around one another.

Any kind of kissing, dating, or as James admitted, _hasty blow jobs between classes_ didn’t crop up for years.

Admittedly, there was that kiss in second year. Two twelve year old boys recreating something they’d seen in movies, heard about in books, and decided to fumblingly try just to see what the fuss was about.

And then try two weeks later on a dare.

And again at age thirteen after their first beer.

And so on.

The actual dating thing, which included shyly holding hands and on two memorable occasions beating up anyone with something smart to say about it, with assists from their two best friends in the world, happened when they were fifteen and lasted exactly nine months.

They went to dances together, looking smart in their tuxedos and posing for photos that were sent home for the Potter’s to coo over. Sirius, who tells it now with an eye roll, was too cool for sports, but would show up for every single one of James’ field hockey games without fail.

Always wearing a letterman jacket with Potter on the back, not too cool to cheer loudly from the stands.

The breakup was surprisingly free of drama, given the couple in question and set a precedent for the on again off again nature of the romantic aspect of their relationship. Not a lot changed when they called it quits, the reason for which still remains a mystery to this day.

They would still be spotted holding hands on occasion, easily and affectionately slinging their arms around one another around campus. It came easy to them and they were never given a reason to stop.

It wasn’t discussed, but moving forward, from the age of sixteen to nineteen, whenever they were both single, they managed to pick up where they left off.

* * *

 

“By now,” he points out, gently. “I know what Sirius looks like when he loves someone. And you.”

“Is it…” Lily doesn’t know how her thought ends. She scrubs a hand over her face, hunching over in her seat as she considers things from his perspective. “Are we…okay?”

Seeing her expression, James pats his lap, holds her when she settles against him. He kisses the top of her head and strokes her hair like there’s nowhere he’d rather be.

“More than.”

* * *

On the day of the funeral, Peter brings over a decadent chocolate cake that gets devoured in a matter of hours.

The living room of Lily’s apartment becomes home base with Peter arriving first, then Remus and Marlene, who bring enough wine to last a week. Frank and Alice bring Neville, since their sitters are all present, and pizza. James and Sirius arrive last and Lily kisses them both on the cheek before ushering them in.

It feels like any other day, minus the fact that everyone’s watching Sirius more than usual, looking for signs of emotional upheaval they aren’t going to find. He spends a twenty minute stretch in the bathroom toward the end of the night, which leaves everyone looking around wondering how to proceed and whether to break down the door until he returns, clearly having washed his face but looking no worse than before.

* * *

**September**

The summer slump passes.

Family dinners pick up after the death of Regulus Black. They turn back into a weekly thing, hosted at various apartments or the Longbottom’s. Most of the time there’s too little space, so it feels like they’re spilling over into rooms, constantly elbowing one another and getting in each other’s way.

They wouldn’t change a thing.

It’s at the end of one such dinners that Lily asks Sirius to stick around. There’s an ebb and flow as the number of people in the apartment dwindles. Leftovers are plated and handed out, goodbyes said.

And then there are three.

Sirius is elbow deep in dishes, with James drying while Lily puts everything away. The radio is low and it would be so peaceful with the sun setting, except she feels a stab of panic and looks to James.

“He’ll laugh at me.”

Sirius glances up, looking between the couple with a frown. “What-“

“Nah,” James assures her with complete confidence. “He wouldn't.”

“You don’t know that,” Lily insists stubbornly.

Sirius pulls his hands out of the sink and instead of drying them, just stands there, dripping on the floor with a wary look on his face.

“One way to find out.”

And the way he says it, Lily is struck suddenly by her _type_ and how she always seems to fall for the ones who dare her to take leaps into the unknown, but only because they’ll be there to catch her on the other side.

The thought bolsters her confidence somewhat as she faces Sirius.

“What,” he repeats.

“I’m a little gone on you,” Lily blurts. “Ah, a lot, actually.”

Sirius looks at her a full minute, saying nothing, before actually turning as if looking over his shoulder as if someone else were standing there. James laughs outright, leaning against the counter, looking like he’s enjoying the whole thing immensely and Lily feels better already, at ease with the complete lack of weirdness.

“You talking to me?”

“What if I am?” Lily juts her chin, teasing without breaking into a smile.

Sirius looks to James, who has his arms crossed over his chest and merely nods, raising his eyebrows at whatever Sirius’ look telegraphs.

“Then I’d say that’s the best news I’ve gotten in awhile,” he says, ambling away from the sink until he’s standing in front of her.

Lily feels a flash of nerves again but manages to keep her voice even. “Really?”

“Evans,” he says quietly, just this side of chiding. “When you look at me, every time it’s like you see me top to bottom, good, bad, and ugly. But instead of running the other way, you just keep loving me. Which either makes you a saint or crazier than I am.”

“Sirius…”

He brings one hand up to cup her cheek, thumb skating softly over the skin there, still damp from his time washing dishes; cool and perfect. Lily leans into the touch and it’s the easiest thing in the world for her to close the distance to hug him. His arms are still soaking when they come up around her and she’s able to look at James over his shoulder, smile back as he beams from the other side of the room.

“Okay?” Sirius asks when they pull apart, bringing a hand up to tug the end of her ponytail out of habit.

“Better than,” Lily answers, unable to smother her smile as James pushes off the counter and joins them. “There’s just…” Lily vaguely flaps her hands a little. “I want to try something because there’s this tension.”

“Name it,” Sirius says instantly.

“I’d like to kiss you. I mean if you want to,” Lily says, looking first to Sirius and then James.

Sirius goes absolutely still. Stunned, he looks over his shoulder at James, who nods.

“Lily and I already talked about it,” James assures him. “We’re good with it if you are. I can leave, if you want?”

“No, don’t. I’m,” Sirius looks oddly flustered as his gaze swings between the couple. “Stay.”

“You sure? I mean, you’re good with this?” Lily checks as a blush rides high on his cheeks.

“I promise anything we do in the next few minutes will be more than fine. Pull my hair, spit on me,” Sirius can’t help but joke, having seemingly found his balance again.  

James chokes on a laugh and when she leans in, placing a hand on his chest to steady herself, Lily is smiling into the kiss.


End file.
